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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25608265">Desert Fury</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chararii/pseuds/chararii'>chararii</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Blood and Water [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Cults, Gen, Human Sacrifice, Mythology - Freeform, Rituals, Sunagakure | Hidden Sand Village, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:21:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25608265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chararii/pseuds/chararii</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The night of Sabaku no Temari's birth is marked by the most vicious sandstorm Suna has experienced in over hundreds of years. More than half of Suna's population dies that night.</p><p>Sabaku no Temari, the fourth Kazekage's eldest child, is branded a herald of destruction.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Gold pours from her eyes and ancient power runs through her veins while the winds whisper into her ears as the djinn, for the first time in forever, stake their claim once more.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gaara &amp; Temari (Naruto)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Blood and Water [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Real Good Shit, THE naruto fic list, why im sleep deprived 💖✨</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Desert Fury</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is part of my Blood and Water universe, a brief look if you will into the culture of another village that has little, if any, relevance to Into the Depths. It's a worldbuilding oneshot I suppose. Something to hopefully enjoy because the next Depths chapter will be delayed.<br/>It's impossible for me to work on it with family at my house. I apologise for that and hope this bridges the gap somewhat. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>The night of Sabaku no Temari's birth is marked by the most vicious sandstorm Suna has experienced in over hundreds of years.</p><p>There is no warning, no prior sign of the violent force of nature that is going to befall their village. It sneaks up on every man, every woman, every child. From one moment to the next, harsh winds rise in the east. They tear across the desert, ruin what little flora is able to thrive in such harsh conditions, and bury minor towns and outposts under a heavy, suffocating blanket of sand. Before the storm even hits the village itself, it has already taken hundreds of lives.</p><p>A minor breeze is all that announces the imminent arrival of the worst natural disaster since long before even the first Kazekage's reign. One by one, stars vanish from the night sky until eventually the moon itself is swallowed, its radiant light not bright enough to pierce through an impenetrable cloud of dust and death. The guards standing watch in outposts barely have any time at all to light the signal fires before they are consumed in their entirety, screams for help drowned by howling winds and the deafening roar of old forgotten primal furies.</p><p>In the end, Sunagakure is caught completely unawares. The speed with which the storm hits the capital is devastating. Men and women guarding the outer walls are torn from their improvised shelters, smashed against solid stone, bodies crushed before being consumed by the sand. For a normal storm, that would have been the end of it. It would have raged above the surface while the lowered location of the village itself would have protected people and buildings from the worst damage.</p><p>Instead, the entire force and all of its fury search for the thin opening in the walls and push through it. A concentrated bolt of wind shoots through high, towering barriers and reduces every unfortunate soul standing on the other side to little more than blood, bones and meat all of which are shred to dust seconds later. The calamity descends upon the village, weaving through tall buildings, tearing down structures and annihilating everyone who fails to hide underground in time.</p><p> </p><p>More than half of Suna's population dies that night.</p><p> </p><p>Sabaku no Temari, the fourth Kazekage's eldest child, is branded a herald of destruction.</p><p> </p><p>The first three years of Temari's life go by rather quick and uneventful. As child of the Kazekage she is not allowed outside; their family isn't supposed to mix with those of lower standing than theirs, the maggots crawling in the dirt. Peasants and criminals. Cultists. The last word is only spoken in hushed whispers, far away from the ears of those close to their kage. There are no cultists in Sunagakure. Their village is a modern and upstanding one. Temari listens quietly and nods, blandly repeats her teacher's lessons. She's an unnaturally canny child. She can talk without stumbling through her sentences mere weeks after her second birthday.</p><p> </p><p>Others fear her. She's young yet, and doesn't understand why servants become skittish when they're alone with her, why guards follow her every movement with their eyes every single second of the day. All she understands is that people avoid her. Her father doesn't touch her, hold her hands or gift her any sort of parental affection at all. Her mother tries, sometimes, but father yells at her when he catches her in the act. Times are tough. Their village struggles. Their children have to become hard and strong. Coddling them will make them weak. Temari grows up alone with shadows that follow her, and winds that whisper her name.</p><p> </p><p>Kankuro is the first one to love her so she loves him in turn. Her younger brother is an adorable child and while Temari herself is only three, she does her best to take care of him. Mother is only allowed near him to feed the baby. Servants fulfil their biological needs for the most part, quiet and fleeting. They coo over her brother, yet avoid her all the same. It is around that time that she realises how little it is simply the way of those beneath her and how much more it is her who is the problem. They love Kankuro. They dislike Temari. She's three and she understands.</p><p> </p><p>On the day her youngest – and final – sibling sees the light, all her mother will see for eternity is darkness. Life, suddenly, is changed. Her father turns into a removed presence she hears about at times but never gets to meet in the flesh. Temari is on her own all the time while Kankuro plays with nannies and Gaara is... she doesn't know where Gaara is, but he's not here and that's all that counts. She spends her evenings staring out of the window. The city below is dreary and boring. The desert is different. She'd go there, if she could. Go there to live among the sand, the scorpions and the winds. Temari is careless that night and drops her mirror, cuts her finger on a shard of glass. She wipes the blood on a towel, washes it, then hangs it from the window to dry.</p><p> </p><p>A sandstorm sweeps through the village that night and claims the towel for itself.</p><p> </p><p>Temari is four when her first instructor vanishes and is replaced by a much older man. His skin looks like paper and his bushy eyebrows hide his eyes. He is Elder Ebizo, brother of Elder Chiyo who has recently become Kankuro's teacher. Numbers, languages and politics suddenly take up less time in her schedule. Instead, Elder Ebizo teaches her about the history of her people, her ancestors and the desert itself. She never has to recite the first rules she ever learned again.</p><p> </p><p>On her fifth birthday, Ebizo takes her on a trip. Temari wonders how he managed to convince her father because while Kankuro is allowed to move about freely, the Kazekage likes to keep his eldest close to his chest. Much like Gaara whom Temari has only seen a handful of times since his birth. They wander into the desert and her teacher points out plants, animals and even the dunes Temari has heard so much about. The winds are harsh that day to an almost worrying degree. After a few hours of wandering, he sits down on a lone rock and opens his hand. In it sits a black scorpion with shiny carapace and sharp claws.</p><p> </p><p>“Eat it.”</p><p> </p><p>Temari never learned to disobey so on that day, in front of that rock, surrounded by sand, the winds and with Elder Ebizo as her only company, she dies – and is subsequently, reborn.</p><p> </p><p>The world looks... different now. She wakes to sand swirling all around her as harsh winds tear at her clothes and hair, tiny grains scratching her skin. She blinks as her vision shifts and it nearly makes Temari throw up. Her body rests in the middle of nowhere, on top of a dune, in the middle of a sandstorm. Thin threads of blood run down her exposed arms and legs and mingle with the sand. The entire experience is unusually vivid. Temari rubs her eyes but the action doesn't remove those barely visible flecks of gold hidden in the storm or the way the sand twists into shapes in front of her eyes, paints entire landscapes and scenes into its vortex. Her head spins as the golden particles come closer and closer. As they touch her, Temari passes out once more.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Come... closer... child...</em>
</p><p> </p><p>It is by pure chance that a passing patrol spots the red sash around her waist, one of its ends the only part of Temari that is not buried under mountains of sand. They bring her back to the village where she eventually wakes to a furious father who demands to knows how she snuck out of the village. She doesn't mention Ebizo. The voice in her head tells her not to and it is the same whispers that let her know that the patrol did not find her by <em>chance</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I apologise, Temari-hime. But I had to be sure.” She inclines her head and watches as the elder gets off the floor and rights himself.</p><p>“At last, we may now move on to your <em>real</em> lessons.” Gold dances in an out of her vision as a slight breeze rises up in an otherwise isolated room.</p><p> </p><p>Temari is six and on her way home from her first academy day when her father's guards snatch her from the street and bring her to the market place. A large crowd is gathered, their attention focused on the proceedings in front of them. Her father stands in front of a group of five: three men and two women who kneel in the dirt, heads bowed, hands tied. They are treated like animals because they were caught praying to ancient and forgotten powers. Minutes later, their throats are slit and their blood seeps into the sand beneath their still bodies.</p><p>Temari feels fury run through her veins as the gold dances and dances and <em>dances</em>-</p><p> </p><p>That night, three outposts dangerously close to the village are consumed by the howling storms.</p><p> </p><p>When Temari is seven, she reaches out to her younger brother. Kankuro and her lost sight of each other, both busy learning from their respective mentors. So one day after boring academy classes, she pulls him with her, through a tiny crack in the wall and leads him into the desert. He's excited – until she sits him down and shows him one of those beautiful black scorpions. He screeches as she cracks open its carapace with a knife, dips her fingers into its poison and brings them to her mouth.</p><p>“Stop!” he yells and pushes her away, hastily wipes her fingers clean with a scrap of cloth.</p><p>“Don't do that Temari, Elder Chiyo said that's... cultist business,” Kankuro whispers fearfully. Temari stills and stares at him, uncomprehending, yet slighted beyond words. Something within her violently rejects her beloved baby brother and it causes tiny fissures within her heart.</p><p>“I... I'll ask her to help you. If they got a hold of you... she can help you before father finds out-” He doesn't get very far. Gold clouds her vision and shoots from her eyes, sinking into his, and he falls asleep. When Kankuro wakes hours later, he can't remember a single thing.</p><p> </p><p>“Your younger brother is lost to you,” Ebizo speaks sagely as she cries and weeps over being rejected by the one she loves the most.</p><p>“Chiyo is a woman of modern arts and beliefs. She turned away from our practises long ago and shaped your brother in her image.” He hums thoughtfully as sand and winds swirl around Temari, mixing with the gold pouring from her eyes.</p><p>“Your youngest brother on the other hand... now <em>he's</em> an interesting one.” The storm stills as Temari does and her gaze turns West, to the forbidden wing of their home where none but Gaara and his uncle are allowed to go.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ta...nu...ki...</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She watches him from afar, lets the winds whisper into her ears and tell her of this youngest child of their family Temari never got to meet. Others call him a junchuuriki, a demon child, and they reject him more than they ever did her. Gaara knows few people, is allowed to meet even fewer. Yashamaru, a man Temari is related to yet never spoke to once, is his caretaker and for a while everything is alright. The winds tell her of her brethren's blood that coats the man's hands yet he does right by her sibling. Until he doesn't.</p><p> </p><p>An explosion rattles the foundation of their home and rouse Temari from her slumber. She lets the gold lead her to the roof of the building where she is met by the bloody remains of a man and a shell of sand.</p><p>She kneels down in front of it. And waits.</p><p> </p><p>“Gaara,” she says as the sand finally cracks and reveals wide green eyes, teary and on the brink of madness. The winds are very harsh tonight and every shinobi who tries to investigate the explosion is flung out of the way.</p><p>“He... he... said m- mother ha- hated me-” Wrath and soul-wrenching sadness colour her youngest brother's voice and the winds whisper to her of the raging beast inside, the most noble of her guardians chained and driven to insanity.</p><p>“Look,” she says quietly and raises her hand so he can see it through the tiny hole in his cocoon. Temari feels for the power of her self and coaxes it to swirl around her fingertips. Bits of sand and gold form into a miniature vortex, painting images of small tanuki playing in the dunes. Something dark manifests in Gaara's eyes and watches carefully.</p><p>Eventually, the shell crumbles and Gaara places his hand into hers. By the time the winds have faded away, the shinobi find little more than a few red spots on the ground where Yashamaru's corpse used to be.</p><p> </p><p>Gaara is a quiet and watchful child. The grief in his heart is rooted deep so Temari gives him something else to occupy his thoughts. She shows him how to read the wind, listen to its whispers. It doesn't come as naturally to him as it did to her so he shows her the things he can do with sand instead. It guides and protects him, is his ultimate defense and his infallible weapon. Temari and Gaara spend countless evenings out in the desert where she teaches him all the things Yashamaru never did, and tells him tales of the ancient beings of sand and air dwelling in the East.</p><p>“One day we will see them,” she says and he looks into her golden eyes before taking her hand like the lost child he is.</p><p>“Together,” Gaara murmurs quietly and Temari nods. Soon after, Gaara's sand, no matter where he goes or what he does, every now and then when the sun hits it just the right way, shimmers and glitters and sparkles like gold.</p><p> </p><p>“Eat it,” she says and eight year old Gaara does. And dies. And hours later, wakes up.</p><p> </p><p>“He is quieter now,” Gaara says when he's ten and sitting on top of a dune next to Temari. His soft hands crack a scorpion in two before sinking his teeth into the flesh and licking black sludgy poison from its insides.</p><p>“He is the Lord of Tanuki, great guardian of the East Wind,” Temari recites from memory as she dips a sharp needle into the mixture of poison, blood and ink resting in a bowl in front of her.</p><p>“Shukaku the fierce beast, child of the sand, keeper of the Desert Fury.” She stabs the needle into her wrist, over and over again, injects the mixture beneath her skin and tattoos the pattern the winds have painted into the sand in front of her onto her body.</p><p>“I am your keeper,” Gaara states and Temari nods. When her left wrist, hand and fingers are covered in swirls, dots and patterns, she offers it to Gaara, palm to the sky. He places his own hand into hers and she begins her task anew.</p><p> </p><p>“What the hell are you two doing?!” Kankuro demands as he catches them without their gloves, hands and arms black and gold and poison dripping from their lips.</p><p>“Don't,” Temari speaks calmly as Gaara's sand reaches for their brother, ready to silence him once and for all. He's not one of theirs, will never be, but she loves him so. Gold leaves her eyes and settles into his. This time it stays and Kankuro is forever blind to their practises.</p><p> </p><p>She wields the mighty fan of her ancestors, Gaara the sand of their homelands. When the Kazekage sends them to Konoha, they go. Temari does not handle being separated from the (her) desert well so Gaara is more watchful than ever. The exams themselves are boring and not all that interesting. Father tried to feed Gaara's madness but the boy who turned to prayers, rituals and sacrifices, has a thin barrier of gold around his mind that keeps those rotten words away. The half-baked plan to destroy the village in leaves fails and they return home with a disgraced father.</p><p> </p><p>“There was a girl. She was like us.”</p><p>“No. She smelled of salt and water. A child of the ocean.”</p><p>“She was hurt and angry, lost in her madness. What I would have become, had you not found me in time.”</p><p>“Her other half will come for her. The ocean is an entity of two souls, a power split in parts. They can never be separated for long.”</p><p>“I wish to dedicate a ritual to her.”</p><p>“...yes, Gaara. We can do that.”</p><p> </p><p>In the following years, the days turn darker and the winds stronger. Poverty befalls their village, citizens starve as sandstorms ravage the landscape and disrupt what little trade they can attract. Murmurs of unrest grow stronger as eyes follow Temari, the bringer of death and destruction and Gaara, demon incarnate. Cultists are dragged from their homes, even those who have never been caught, along with countless innocents. Everyone is scared of those who whisper and sacrifice to imaginary beings of power. Their blood coats the sand and with each one that falls, the focus shifts closer and closer to the Kazekage's own children.</p><p> </p><p>On Temari's sixteenth birthday, Ebizo is discovered to be the ringleader of Suna's cult and publicly executed by the Kazekage himself.</p><p> </p><p>That night, the winds howl and rage and she knows her time has come.</p><p> </p><p>Thick strands of golden dust weave through the Kazekage's residence and climb into the mouth of every guard, every servant, every agent hiding in the shadows. Temari wanders the halls with Gaara by her side. His sand covers their father's mouth while a wave of her hand ensures he won't wake up. A storm hides their group of three from sight as they leave the village and wander out in the desert. They go East, travel three nights and three days, through increasingly harsh winds until, at last, they reach their destination.</p><p>Gold surrounds Temari and Gaara and allows them entry. Thick walls of sand part in front of their eyes, reveal the calm at the heart of the storm. On the other side is a small group of people waiting for them. Clad in dark robes with hoods hiding their faces, they kneel on the ground, one on each of the six circles of blood drenching the sand.</p><p>“We welcome you, Fury of the Desert and Guardian of the East Wind,” the seventh rasps in a dry voice, long deprived of water.</p><p>“We are honoured to witness your ascension, Sabaku no Temari.”</p><p> </p><p>She kneels in their midst, naked and with little more than sacred markings covering her skin. They hum and chant as they carve more into her body, feed her the poison of all of the desert's creatures and watch as the gold leaves her eyes to swirl all around her. Her father is strung up before her, suspended in the air with Gaara's sand, eyes wide, mouth opened in a silent scream as she slowly drains his body. His blood trickles onto the sand below him, coats Temari's palms. Gaara bows low in front of her and she paints his face red, claims him as hers forever.</p><p>The winds grow stronger and stronger as they close in on their hallowed circle. One by one, the cultists are swallowed by the storm, claimed as sacrifices for the most sacred of rituals. They go in silence, finding eternal rest in the heart of the desert.</p><p> </p><p>As the last remains of light leave her father's eyes, the gold combines with the wind and sand, takes shape and turns into something so beautiful and majestic, Temari will forever fail to put into words. It is the East Wind, the ancient power of this land, and it takes one look at her before consuming her and claiming her for itself.</p><p> </p><p>When she comes to, her vision is forever changed, tinted in countless shades of gold and there is the power of the desert flowing through her veins.</p><p>“Your Grace,” Gaara murmurs as he kneels in front of her, head bowed low, palms offered in supplication.</p><p>She is Sabaku no Temari, Desert Fury, High Priestess of the East Wind and this land belongs to her.</p><p> </p><p>“The Kazekage is dead,” she declares to the council, eyes of molten gold staring at each and every one of them as she addresses them clad in pale airy chiffon, body covered in dark markings and thick bands of gold clasped around her forearms and wrists.</p><p>“My brother Gaara will succeed him.” They don't protest, don't dare to. They gaze upon her resplendent glory and are reminded of old wives' tales, haunting stories, the ravings of cultists they thought insane and delirious. She is the desert, the sand and the wind and they quiver before her.</p><p> </p><p>“After you,” Gaara murmurs as he motions towards the Kazekage's throne. He stands beside the gaudy chair as Temari slowly lowers herself onto it, back against warmed sandstone. She crosses her legs and rests her arms on gilded sides. Outside, nature rages and roars as storms tear through the desert, a steady current devastating the lands from the East.</p><p>“I saw it,” Gaara adds quietly as they both stare at the gentle sway of candle flames dancing in the faint breeze flowing through the throne room.</p><p>“The djinn.” Gold particles steadily pour from her eyes and bathe the interior in a mystical, ancient haze.</p><p>“It was...” His words fail him.</p><p>“Yes,” she agrees.</p><p>“We went and saw it together. As we promised each other.” She reaches for his hand and clasps it lovingly, rubs his palm with her thumb.</p><p>“Forever, my brother, guardian of my wind,” she declares.</p><p>“Forever, my sister, fury of my sands,” he agrees.</p><p> </p><p>They are Temari and Gaara, sister and brother, High Priestess and Eternal Guardian, and this desert is theirs.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well, that's my brief venture into another village and its relationship with old practises. Also, Temari and Gaara. Love em both. (Kankuro too but splitting up the siblings like that just works so well both for my narrative and the way they are in canon.)</p><p>Hope you enjoyed this. :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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